The tour programme can provide artists with additional space for their albums’ branding themes to be expanded upon, something skilfully negotiated in collaboration with a trusted creative team. For Pet Shop Boys this has almost always been with Mark Farrow’s design studio, and together they continue to push creative boundaries. From imaginative formats, to foil blocking, die-cutting and sumptuous spot varnishes, the duo’s programmes are revered as collectable works of pop art. Join us as we go inside the sheets and behind the scenes…
Pet Shop Boys’ first tour in 1989, titled MCMLXXXIX comprised just 14 nights in seven venues across Japan and the United Kingdom, but this didn’t limit creative ambitions for the long-awaited event and an impressive team of talent was assembled for the task. Derek Jarman was commissioned as show director and creator of the film projections, all shot in his signature Super 8 style. One of the films, created for Paninaro, featured a Dalmatian dog which informed the dotty costume designs of the dancers that Chris Lowe shared the stage with. This same dog can also be seen in its diamanté collar, confidently striding across the programme’s wraparound dust jacket, in which Jarman shared details of his vision for the show, as quoted on 10yearsofbeingboring.com: “I decided there was no point illustrating the songs literally or it would just become laboured. For instance, Paninaro refers to a particular type of motor-scooter kid in Italy – we took that theme and instead made some film which looked like old washed-out postcards of Italy, of statues and clouds and ceilings and Italian hustlers from another age… I suppose some people think pop music and theatre shouldn’t mix but I think pop music is theatre and I don’t see why it shouldn’t be so.”
For the next tour in 1991, simply titled Performance, the time was right to take things up a notch, as detailed by Neil Tennant in the programme: “The last tour was our first one so it was a learning experience for everyone and we enjoyed it a lot… We’d always wanted to do a theatrical kind of show, and I think we achieved it to a certain extent on the last tour with the use of film, dancers, costumes and all the rest of it. But doing those shows made us realise how much further we could go. This time we’ve tried to take everything much, much further. We felt that in the last show there were still elements of a rock show, and this time we’ve tried to get away from almost every element of a rock show.” The tour programme, again in large format with a wraparound dust jacket, this time used one of the stage set mock-ups created by David Fielding on its cover. It showed Tennant and Lowe as cardboard cuts-outs scurrying across the set with their spiky wigs as seen in a portion of the show.
Right: The dog featured on the programme for the MCMLXXXIX tour also appeared in Derek Jarman’s film for Paninaro
Below: The duo’s second tour, Performance, was put together with director David Alden and designer David Fielding
Left: The duo began their DiscoVery tour in October 1994